It’s both sad and infuriating to say that even though dowry is illegal in India, it’s widely prevalent across the country. While some parents willingly give it as gifts, others are forced to pay hefty amount of cash and jewellery to secure their daughter’s marriage.
Torture of women for dowry is quite common in Indian households. Recently two cases of dowry related deaths surfaced from the state of Kerala.
One of them was Vismaya, a final year student of Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery, who was found dead at her in-law’s house on 22nd June. Her death caused widespread online protests after it was found that she had allegedly told a family member about the assault and torture she was facing at her in-laws house.
While the case is still under police investigation, the online edition of Manorama magazine, used the Vismaya’s wedding photo on its cover page.
A picture of the same is going viral on Twitter.
The headline on the cover page apparently says: Let there be no more of these bewilderments.
It should be noted that the victim’s name was Vismaya, which also means bewilderment.
People are calling out the publication for crossing all limits for the sake of publicity.
While we do not know if the publication took permission from Vismaya’s parents or not, using her wedding picture like this is really insensitive.
According to data from NCRB, India recorded nearly 7000 dowry-related deaths in a year. It’s high time we talk about dowry deaths in India and bring the victims to justice.